NASFAA Policy Report Offers Support For New Bill’s Efforts To Increase Equity In Higher Education Funding

November 25, 2014 – Efforts to increase access to higher education got a boost last week with the release of Sen. Tom Harkin’s Higher Education Affordability Act (HEAA), a bill that includes many recommendations from the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA).

NASFAA, which represents approximately 20,000 financial aid professionals nationwide, supports Sen. Harkin’s bill and applauds the Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee for including provisions that would increase equity in federal funding for higher education. In one of many smart stances, the HEAA would “strengthen the campus-based aid programs, Perkins Loans, Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, and Work Study and reallocate funds in an orderly way to institutions who serve low and moderate-income students,” according to the bill summary.

“We are gratified to see that the bill will preserve and bolster the ‘campus-based’ aid programs and revise the allocation formula to make the distribution of federal funds to institutions more equitable – a provision long supported by NASFAA,” NASFAA President Justin Draeger wrote in a letter of support for the HEAA.

Campus-based aid program funding gives institutions needed leeway to distribute funds based on the needs of individual students, but the formula for allocation is outdated by about 40 years, a recent policy report by NASFAA’s Campus-Based Aid Task Force concluded. NASFAA research supports changing the allocation formula to help institutions better serve their needy students.

For more information on how this small change could greatly impact institutions and their students, please see NASFAA’s Campus-Based Aid Task Force report, and contact us at 202-687-6959 or news@nasfaa.org to speak to a policy expert directly.

About NASFAA

The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) is a nonprofit membership organization that represents nearly 20,000 financial aid professionals at more than 3,000 colleges, universities, and career schools across the country. NASFAA member institutions serve nine out of every ten undergraduates in the U.S. Based in Washington, D.C., NASFAA is the only national association with a primary focus on student aid legislation, regulatory analysis, and training for financial aid administrators. For more information, visit http://www.nasfaa.org.